For many, the wheelchair is the essential means of mobility and permits the occupant to perform common activities that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, such as navigating about one's own home, tending to outdoor chores or pleasures, attending public gatherings, shopping at a physical store location, joining family and friends, and simply escaping the confines of one's own home. Those with extreme disability or compromised motor function typically require substantial assistance. Thus, the wheelchair serves as the principal enabler of independent or assisted mobility depending on the degree of disability, permanent or temporary. Whereas the wheelchair has traditionally been viewed as a device that imparts limits or boundaries to the occupant, recent advances in wheelchair design, materials and technology coupled with improved accessibility standards and progressive attitudes regarding wheelchair access have elevated the wheelchair as a tool that facilitates health, personal enjoyment and a degree of independence and freedom.
In most cases, physicians and other clinicians direct their patients to engage in the use of wheelchairs for daily mobility in an effort to improve the physical, mental and social activity that most often leads to an improvement in overall well-being. Based on the patient's range of physical abilities, the emphasis on wheelchair use should be driven by the combination of independence and safety of the wheelchair occupant. The features of any particular wheelchair ideally match the needs driven by the daily activities of the patient inside and/or outside of the home. This latter consideration is where most wheelchairs fall short in their promise to deliver independence and mobility, when the tandem of wheelchair and occupant venture outside the controlled environment of the home, nursing care unit or similar venue, and move outside into the neighborhood or surrounding community. It is here where a caregiver is often required to negotiate the challenges of the outdoor or unfamiliar environment or terrain. Prior and ongoing efforts have attempted to develop adaptive wheelchairs that adjust to both the wheelchair occupant and the caretaker, who is often a spouse or relative who may be elderly, has physical limitations of their own, or be of a stature where “one size doesn't fit all”. The ease and simplicity with which a wheelchair can be adjusted to keep the occupant both comfortably and safely seated during this process of reconfiguration has yet to be satisfactorily addressed at a price point that most consumers or insurance carriers are willing or able to pay. In addition, rarely are the ergonomics addressed from the position of the caretaker. When used under demanding environments or in repetitive, long-term caregiving regardless of the environment, it may be the caregiver behind the wheelchair who encounters the greatest risk for injury or stress to joints and muscles due to poorly designed or statically positioned features characteristic of most wheelchairs.
Most affordable, current manual wheelchairs have a stationary 90-degree angle chair. Most wheelchair occupants have a difficult time or express discomfort of the spine and lower back when sustaining that position for more than 30 minutes. Safety is also an issue when seated at the 90-degree angle because the start and stop motion often jars the occupant making them feel like they are going to fall out of the front of the wheelchair. Other, more expensive wheelchair models that recline do so in a way that only the back of the chair pivots or tilts backwards, but the seat remains stationary, so the occupant tends to slide toward the front of the seat. Some customized, very expensive models have a sledding or hinge mechanism that tilts both the back and seat of the chair as a unit but due to the additional framing, hardware and design, these chairs are heavy and beyond the economic reach of most individuals or families looking to purchase or lease a wheelchair. In addition, when current manual wheelchairs are tilted, the handles, which are attached to the seat back frame, are lowered to a position that renders them useless or at best, cumbersome to use for the caregiver.
A wheelchair which affords the ability to safely and stably rotate the seating area from an upright to a more tilted position while maintaining the angle between the seat and backrest, and while providing for ergonomically correct handle positions whether the seating area is upright or tilted, would represent an important advance in the art.